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How Not To Win a Senate Seat

Snowe's Challenger: Going for the Wingnut Vote

02.29.12 6:30 PM ET

Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine has announced that she will not run for reelection for her seat in 2012. Snowe was already facing a primary challenge from businessman Scott D’Amboise, but don't expect him to win in the general election.

D'Amboise's problem isn't that he is extremely conservative, it is that he is receptive to outlandish conspiracy theories. When FrumForum spoke to D'Amboise in July of 2011, he revealed that he was not convinced that Obama was really a Christian. He was also concerned that Obama "exercises a lot of Muslim faith":

Scott D’Amboise, one of two Republicans challenging Snowe, has been endorsed by several organizations whose Tea-Party-supported stances have been subjects of controversy, including one that still suggests that Obama’s birth certificate is fake and another which accused Obama of making peace with terrorists and of “returning to his Muslim roots.”

Despite the fact that Obama has publicly identified himself as holding Christian beliefs, D’Amboise insisted to FrumForum: “The President, he says he is Christian but yet he’s exercises a lot of Muslim faith too. Me personally, I’m a Christian conservative. I don’t hold any malice to anybody, whether they are Muslim, or Jewish, or Catholic, or anything else. I just believe that he needs to come forward with his views a little bit clearer.”

When asked whether D’Amboise believed that Obama was secretly a Muslim — or how holding Muslim sympathies might effect his policies — D’Amboise replied: “I don’t know if he is or isn’t, but I don’t believe he’s a Christian.”